Heart rate monitors: how to use them to improve your run

There are key areas that’ll ensure you make the most of your heart rate monitor (HRM) with the first being to accurately calculate your training zones by determining your functional threshold heart rate (FTHR), both of which we show you how to calculate at the bottom of the page. Tied in with this, never use 220 minus age or maximum HR to set zones – they’re not good markers.

I’d also recommend, after a run session, comparing run speed with average HR by dividing HR by speed. You can do this for the entire run or sections of it. This number is called the ‘Efficiency Factor’ and rises as your aerobic capacity increases. It’s a great marker of perhaps the most important aspect of the endurance athlete’s fitness.

Note, too, that once your fitness has progressed beyond a beginner’s level, HR zones will seldom change and never by very much. In fact, you don’t necessarily want them to change. What should change is pace and speed. So pace zones and HR zones will rarely match.

When it comes to really boosting stamina, undertake maintenance runs at your aerobic threshold (AT). These are at least weekly in the base period (winter into early spring) and at least once every two weeks in the build period (spring into the triathlon race season).

Unless you have access to a lab, assume that AT is 30bpm below FTHR, plus and minus 2bpm. For example, if FTHR comes in at 152bpm, AT is estimated at around 120-124bpm. Long, steady runs in this HR range are highly effective in boosting aerobic fitness.

All that said, never take HR to be a predictor of performance. It isn’t. No triathlon race outcomes are ever determined by who has the highest HR. On the other hand, speed is the perfect indicator of performance.

Functional threshold test

Run a 30min time-trial on your own

Find your FTHR

At 10mins into your 30min TT, click the lap button on your HRM

When finished, look back to see your average HR for the last 20mins. This is an approximation of your FTHR

Set zones

You can now set your run training zones. Zone 1 is less than 85% of FTHR; zone 2 85-89%; zone 3 90-94%; zone 4 95-99%; zone 5a 100-102%; zone 5b 103-106%; zone 5c more than 106%

• How to interpret data to see if your performance is improving
• Training: the 3 most valuable metrics triathletes should measure
• Functional threshold power: what it is and how to boost it
• Why is my heart rate high on easy runs

Joe Friel Coaching legend

About

Joe Friel is a life-long athlete and has a masters degree in exercise science. He has trained and conferred with amateur and professional endurance athletes from a wide variety of sports since 1980. Based on this experience he cofounded TrainingPeaks.com in 1999 with son Dirk Friel and friend Gear Fisher. He currently coaches only a few athletes. He mostly focuses on training emerging top-level coaches on best practices in preparing endurance athletes for competition. This regularly takes him to coaching seminars around the world. He also consults with corporations in the sports and fitness industry and with national Olympic governing bodies worldwide. His Training Bible books for road cyclists, mountain bikers, and triathletes are used by several national sports federations to train their coaches. Friel’s philosophy and methodology for training athletes was developed over more than 40 years and is based on his strong interest in sport science research and his experience training hundreds of athletes with a wide range of abilities. His views on matters related to training for endurance sports are widely sought and have been featured in such publications as VeloNews, Bicycling, Outside, Runner’s World, Women’s Sports & Fitness, Men’s Fitness, Men’s Health, American Health, Masters Sports, The New York Times, Triathlete, 220 Triathlon, and many more. Joe lives and trains in the mountains of Sedona, Arizona.